Staff Photo by Dan Henry / The Chattanooga Times Free Press- 1/29/17. Pilgrim Congregational Church congregants hold signs while taking to 3rd Street in downtown Chattanooga to march two-miles picketing President Trump's executive order on immigration barring some and suspending others from entering the United States.

Photo by
Dan Henry
/Times Free Press.

Senator Bob Corker held a press conference, in Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee, after touring the areas affected by a recent string of wildfires in Southeast Tennessee on November 21, 2016.

Tennessee's senior senator Lamar Alexander visited the Chattanooga Times Free Press for a conversation with the newspaper's editorial board. Senator Alexander discussed such topics as solar power and overtime pay issues.

NASHVILLE - U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., are taking issue with elements of President Donald Trump's immigration order, calling it confusing and Alexander saying "it comes close to one which is inconsistent with our American character.

With protesters marching in Chattanooga and, in Nashville, dozens demonstrating outside Corker's office here, the senator issued a statement saying "we all share a desire to protect the American people, but this executive order has been poorly implemented, especially with respect to green card holders."

Trump issued the sweeping executive travel ban last week limiting limiting entry to the U.S. from seven predominantly Muslim nations. According to multiple news accounts, some Muslims who had legal visas or green cards were detained at airports in some cities.

One was reportedly an Iraqi man who had assisted American troops during the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

A number of federal judges have placed stays on the order pending further court action.

"The administration should immediately make appropriate revisions," said Corker, adding "and it is my hope that following a thorough review and implementation of security enhancements that many of these programs will be improved and reinstated."

Alexander said in his own statement that "this vetting proposal itself needed more vetting.

"More scrutiny of those traveling from war-torn countries to the United States is wise," Alexander said. "But this broad and confusing order seems to ban legal, permanent residents with 'green cards,' and might turn away Iraqis, for example, who were translators and helped save lives of Americans troops and who could be killed if they stay in Iraq."

Alexander said that "while not explicitly a religious test, it comes close to one which is inconsistent with our American character."